Evolution Wars Show No Sign of Abating

[greyl]

In Tulsa, the zoo's board first voted to include a creationist display in answer to the complaint about the elephant-headed Hindu god and another display creationists considered religious, then reversed itself. The Georgia warning-sticker case will be resolved by a federal court ruling within the next several months. In Kansas, science is "still under siege," according to the NCSE. The final form of the proposed science standards scheduled for a vote in September remains unclear.

Then there is the legislation introduced in the South Carolina legislature that is based on antievolution language that originally was part of the No Child Left Behind bill. The antievolution language was eventually stripped from the federal bill. The South Carolina bill, whose author wants students to be taught "more than Charles Darwin's theories of evolution," will top the agenda when the legislature reconvenes in January.

In Pennsylvania, a house subcommittee on basic education just concluded hearings on a bill that would allow school boards to include intelligent design in their K–12 science curriculum. The hearing was held as lawyers prepared for a trial over an order by the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania that intelligent design be taught in biology classes as an alternative to evolution. Eleven parents challenged the order and the trial is set for September.

As NCSE's Branch noted, it has been a very busy year in the evolution wars, and indications are that the battles will heat up even more in the coming months.
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-58/iss-8/p24.html

[madeline_con]

1. IMO, creationists do not understand

evolutionary theory.

I have never heard or read any of them who seemed to get the basic points. They cannot discuss the issue rationally because they are ignorant of it.

I've actually heard a racoon giving birth to a lizard as a valid example of how it supposedly works. This is what we're up against.

(We need an emotican who's scratching his head.)

[TaleWgnDg]

5. "Cannot discuss the issue rationally," you say? wha?

.

"Cannot discuss the issue rationally," you say? wha? Rational thinking is foreign to them. They are mired in ignorance.

"Creationism" is not rational based as is anything that adheres to the scientific model such as Darwin's Evolutionary Theory. Hell. Those "bible thumpers" cannot get past the word "theory," thinking that scientific theories are based not in fact!

Where does one begin w/ these ignorant people?

Have pity as they cannot understand that which has never been taught to them or that that they have failed to grasp. They have never assimilated rationalities, reason, objectivity or anything of which the educated critically-thinking mind finds ordinary.



.

[madeline_con]

9. The "issue" I was referring to was evolution.

I guess it was semi unclear.

Some of them went to the same schools regular people went to. They talked about evolution in Science class. They've been exposed, they just couldn't handle it. It was too complex to grasp. ;)

[TaleWgnDg]

10. ah-ha !! n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. Very few things expose the ignorance of the right

quite like this. It is just staggering that this is going on in the 21st Century in a technologically advanced country.

Naturally, a lot of republicans don't buy the ID crap either, but the fact that they will play along also says a lot about their intellectual dishonesty.

[DanCa]

3. Bruce Springsteen says it best

Part Man or Part Monkey album 18 tracks

They prosecuted some poor sucker in these United States
For teaching that man descended from the apes
They coulda settled that case without a fuss or fight
If they'd seen me chasin' you, sugar, through the jungle last night
They'da called in that jury and a one two three said
Part man, part monkey, definitely

Well the church bell rings from the corner steeple
Man in a monkey suit swears he'll do no evil
Offers his lover's prayer but his soul lies
Dark and driftin' and unsatisfied
Well hey bartender, tell me whaddaya see
Part man, part monkey, looks like to me

Well the night is dark, the moon is full
The flowers of romance exert their pull
We talk awhile, my fingers slip
I'm hard and crackling like a whip

Well did God make man in a breath of holy fire
Or did he crawl on up out of the muck and mire
Well the man on the street believes what the bible tells him so
Well you can ask me, mister, because I know
Tell them soul-suckin' preachers to come on down and see
Part man, part monkey, baby that's me

[TaleWgnDg]

4. The *tension* caused by those of the Bible Belt and some . . .

.
The *tension* caused by those of the Bible Belt and some areas of the Grain Belt, espousing religion instead of reason, is nothing new. After all, Western Civilization slogged through the Dark Ages and Galileo's "fiasco" caused by the Christian Church at that time.

My guesstimate of today's timeframe is 100 years or maybe 150 years. That is, until the Bible Belt and parts of the Grain Belt catch up with the rest of Western Civilization. However, I do not want to be subjected to their learning curve as we are and have been enduring for the past 30 or so years in America.


as well as conservative Roman Catholicism

.

[opihimoimoi]

6. Its aFlat Earth After all.........Those who refuse Evolution do themselves

in as Fools led by those who wish to RULE.

ID has no credible EVIDENCE, no history, no way to test.

Evolution has them all.

It has passed the test of time and is being updated constantly.

ID is Behes way of making money....

[TaleWgnDg]

7. Yup. Once again it's the powerful sucking off the ignorant and

.
Yup. Once again it's the powerful sucking off the ignorant and uneducated or ill-educated. It's a money-making endeavor, after all. How very true. As the world laughs at us in America with such a monkey's ass as president as his followers click their heels in time.

And, then there's the addition layering of hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy, e.g., we rail against religious involvement in other countries as Bush and Company espouse no Separation of Church and State here at home. Surreal.



.

[greyl]

8. The scientists fighting these battles need our support.

Hopefully the Democratic Party can provide it.

[DanCa]

11. Greyl I agree and I just want to say

as long as you dont legislate your faith I personally dont care if someone goes to church or not.